Genre: Erotica

Throwback Thursday Guest Review: Healing Seduction by Jory Strong

Posted December 3, 2020 by Ames in Reviews | 1 Comment

Throwback Thursday Guest Review: Healing Seduction by Jory StrongReviewer: Ames
Healing Seduction by Jory Strong
Series: Crime Tells #4.5
Publisher: Ellora's Cave
Publication Date: January 22, 2010
Genres: Erotica
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four-stars
Series Rating: four-stars

For years Lucca and Quade have shared women and enjoyed games of sexual dominance. While she was married, Kiera was off-limits, even in their fantasies. Now that she’s single, guilt and loyalty keep them from acting on their desire.

At twenty-six, Kiera has been a widow for almost as long as she was a wife. Before pain and loss stripped her bare and changed her, she’d never craved the things Lucca and Quade want in the bedroom. Now she does. She knows they love her. But for them to have a future together, she needs to break through their emotional barriers.

Unknown to them, she’s got a plan. And if it works, Quade and Lucca won’t be able to resist her healing seduction.
Note: Set in the Crime Tells world, with brief cameos from Lyric (Lyric’s Cop), and Calista and Benito (Calista’s Men).

This review was originally published on February 13, 2010

I’ve never read Jory Strong before, but I think I’m going to have to check out her backlist.

Healing Seduction is short story length but it definitely packs the heat in, especially if you like threesomes with a little bit of BDSM involved. Nothing crazy, but just a little bit of dominance in the bedroom, some spanking. LOL

Kiera has been widowed for two years now and she decides enough time has passed. She’s ready to move on with her life, and there’s no one she’d rather do that with than her friends, Lucca and Quade. The problem? These men had also been friends with her husband, and there is definitely some guilty feelings on their part. But will their love for Kiera overcome the guilt?

First of all, Kiera doesn’t know how Quade and Lucca feel about her. So she decides (with the help of her friend) to set up a date with two different guys to see if Lucca and Quade would react to the sight of her between two guys. Well Lucca goes nuts with jealousy and tells her if she wants to know what its like with two guys, he and Quade will be the two to show her, no one else.

Lucca showed just the right amount of jealousy! Healing Seduction had just the right amount of emotion and sex to tie things up in a nice little bow. Knowing that these 3 people knew each other for quite a while makes the length of this story believable.

One little thing – there was some head jumping going on. This could get confusing, especially between Quade and Lucca. But that’s my only beef!

Healing Seduction gets a 4 out 5 (B) from me. Plenty of heat!

four-stars


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Review: Knight by Kristen Ashley

Posted September 2, 2020 by Casee in Reviews | 2 Comments

Review: Knight by Kristen AshleyReviewer: Casee
Knight by Kristen Ashley
Series: Unfinished Hero #1
Also in this series: Creed, Raid, Deacon, Sebring
Publisher: Self-Published
Publication Date: April 15, 2013
Format: eBook
Source: Purchased
Point-of-View: First Person
Content Warning: View Spoiler »
Genres: Contemporary Romance, Erotica
Pages: 280
Add It: Goodreads
Reading Challenges: Casee's 2020 Goodreads Challenge, Goodreads Challenge
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four-stars
Series Rating: four-stars

Anya Gage has learned that to get anything good in life, you have to work for it. She has no expectations, no dreams.
Then she finds herself at a party where she doesn’t want to be and she meets Knight.
Knight Sebring knows who he is, what he wants and what he likes. And he gets it. But he never expected something as sweet as Anya Gage to wander into his bedroom during a party he did not expect to be having to borrow his phone.
Knight tries to leave Anya to the life she deserves of white picket fences and a man who watches football on Sundays – good, normal and clean. But when Anya comes to his nightclub and finds herself in a situation, he knows someone has to look after her, he can’t fight it anymore and he decides that man will be him.
Knight teaches Anya that, just as with the bad, in life you should also expect the good. And he teaches her this by giving it to her.
But Knight has a dark past and just as he desires Anya for exactly who she is, he fears when she finds out exactly the man he has become and always intends to be, she’ll leave him for good, normal and clean.

I loved this book when I didn’t really expect to. How could I not love it?

“Wars fought over a face like this. A man would work himself into the ground for it, go down to his knees to beg to keep it, endure torture to protect it, take a bullet for it. Poison his brother to possess a face like this.”

When Anya Gage is invited to a party with a friend, she tags along not knowing that her entire world is about to be turned upside down. Finding that the party is not for her, Anya goes searching for her coat. In Knight Sebring’s room. Sheltered she may be, even Anya knows Knight Sebring. He runs the hottest club in town. Even she had been there. Knowing all she knows about Knight (which isn’t much), she’s hardly prepared for her first meeting with him. Or each subsequent meeting.

Knight can’t believe his brother would throw a party at his place without clearing it with him first. Then he believes it because his brother is a total loser. He doesn’t expect to run into someone as young and fresh as Anya. Knight can see immediately that she’s innocent, something that definitely calls to him. Still, the innocent and Knight don’t go together very well.

From their first meeting, Knight and Anya are fire. Their attraction is pretty much instantaneous. Knight is the kind of person that takes what he wants. What he wants is Anya, in his bed and in his life. But he knows that she’s too good for him. She’s light and he lives in the darkness. He tries to let her go, but he just can’t give her up. He wants to take care of her. He wants to make her life easier, make her happy in bed and out. He just wants Anya.

This book won’t be for everyone. It’s definitely more of an erotic romance rather than contemporary. Contemporary erotica is what I would call it. Knight is the quintessential alpha anti-hero. At first there doesn’t seem to be much to like about him. He’s overbearing and a little too protective. He gives Anya orders and expects her to obey. He takes over her life (for her safety of course). View Spoiler » Even with all that, he’s surprisingly likable. I couldn’t help but fall in love with both Anya and Knight. I ended up loving how Knight took care of Anya. She’s worked so hard her entire life and he wants to help her so she can actually live her life. Preferably with him.

There were some really annoying things about Knight though. One of the biggest ones is that he won’t marry Anya. If he had a reasonable explanation for not wanting to marry her, I could possibly get on board. But he doesn’t. That doesn’t end up mattering in the end because the love these two have is epic. Once in a lifetime. So the whole marriage thing didn’t matter in the end. It was just annoying at first.

Rating: 4.25 out of 5.

Unfinished Hero

four-stars


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Throwback Thursday Guest Review: Dancing in the Dark by Jennifer Dunne

Posted July 2, 2020 by Tracy in Reviews | 0 Comments

Throwback Thursday Guest Review: Dancing in the Dark by Jennifer DunneDancing in the Dark by Jennifer Dunne
Publisher: Ellora's Cave
Publication Date: April 19, 2010
Format: eBook
Source: Publisher
Genres: Erotica
Pages: 82
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three-half-stars

A humdrum life… Keri Montero lives a boring life. Work, TV, volunteering, and her quilting hardly make the stuff of fantasy and dreams.

A mistaken invitation… All this changes when she receives an invitation to a charity Halloween costume party to benefit the local opera house. She decides to go, even if the tickets are—gasp—$100 each.

A walk on the wild side… Her costume can be anything, and Keri decides to live on the wild side for once. Going as a submissive slave girl might invite trouble. But when she meets the man of her dreams, she decides to go even wilder. Keri wants to submit to his every…sexual…whim.

*** Every Thursday, we’ll be posting throwback reviews of our favorite and not-so-favorite books. Enjoy! ***

This review was originally posted on May 8, 2010.

So after getting the invitation to the Halloween party Keri has to decide what to be. She goes online after deciding to be a slave girl – since there are always so many in the operas – and buys a costume sight unseen. That right there would put up a big red flag for me. When she gets the costume it’s more of a bdsm costume than anything else but Keri decides to go for it. When she gets to the party she talks up many gentlemen but none of them seem to get what she was trying to do – which was a find a master. When she meets the man – who’s dressed as a sun god and is masked himself they immediately are drawn to each other and leave the party.

The sun god is truly looking for a slave and he wants to be Kerri’s Master. He takes Keri to his apartment that holds his dungeon and they proceed to get down and dirty. I don’t know too much about the bdsm lifestyle but I’d have to say that I found this to be bdsm light since Keri was completely new to the lifestyle. After 2 days of meeting with “the Master” Keri still has no idea who the man is or what he looks like but she doesn’t want to go back to her humdrum life and decides to take the bull by the horns and keep up with her slave girl position.

This was a very cute story but I have to say that I did have a couple of issues with it. First I found that what Keri was doing was completely not her. She came home and watched Charmed every day and ate microwave meals and quilted. I just couldn’t see her – even in her wildest dreams doing something like this. I saw her as more of the person who would get the costume on a whim and then decide not to wear it. IDK it just didn’t hit me right. The second would be that she fell in love with the sun god – sight unseen – knowing nothing about the man except having sex with him 3 times. Having great sex is wonderful, don’t get me wrong, but a love relationship it does not make imho.

Despite the niggles I had with it I thought the story was written well and it did get my attention and didn’t let go. This is a highly sexual & erotic novella and has more sex than not, but I didn’t find myself skipping any sex scenes (which when they get tedious, I must admit I do).

Rating: 3.5 out of 5

You can read more from Tracy at Tracy’s Place

This book is available from Ellora’s Cave. You can buy it here in e-format.

three-half-stars


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What Are You Reading? (+ Opal Carew Giveaway)

Posted June 28, 2019 by Holly in Features, Giveaways | 8 Comments

Casee: I finished Archangel’s War by Nalini Singh last night. It slayed me. The Guild Hunter series is by far my favorite series out there. I read the first page of Lionheart by Thea Harrison last night so I think I’m going to go with that next.

I’m listening to Complicated by Kristen Ashley. It’s the first KA book I’ve listened to on audio and I’m really enjoying it so far. I listened to Hot Asset by Lauren Layne on audio this week and really enjoyed the narrators. I’m not sure about the series yet. I did love the hero.

Holly: I had a great reading week. I reread some Mercy Thompson books this week because of Rowena. Night Broken, Fire Touched and Silence Fallen. That series is so great. I haven’t decided if I’ll read Storm Cursed again or move on to something different…but I’ll probably read Storm Cursed again. I also re-read Sustained and Sidebarred by Emma Chase. That book (and novella) is so good. I love Jake and the McQuaid kids.

For new reads, I finished listening to The Knocked Up Plan by Lauren Blakely, then immediately started Come As You Are, the next book in the series. I really enjoyed The Knocked Up Plan, but I loved Come As You Are. I started Long Shot by Kennedy Ryan for our Summer Reading Challenge, but I wasn’t in the mood for something heavy, so I set it aside in favor of Hot Asset by Lauren Layne. I liked that one enough that I started Hard Sell, book 2 in the series, as soon as I finished. Both were good, but I enjoyed Hard Sell a bit more.

I haven’t decided if I’m going to finish the 21 Wall Street series and read book 3, Huge Deal, next, or if I’m going to read something else. I’ll probably listen to Storm Cursed by Patricia Briggs and read Marry Me by Jo Goodman.

Rowena: First of all, read Huge Deal, Holly. Haha. Alright, on to my reading week. Like Holly, I had a really great reading week and that makes me happy since the last couple of weeks have been really rough. Again, like Holly, I read Night Broken, Fire Touched and am finishing up Silence Fallen. I’m really glad that I read Night Broken with Holly because we had a really good discussion afterward and I’m super glad that the next book was already downloaded and ready to be read on my kindle since I was not a happy camper after finishing Night Broken. Not because it wasn’t good but because I was sorely disappointed in Adam and his pack and I needed him to make things better already.

I should be finished with Silence Fallen by lunchtime here in Southern California and immediately after, I plan on starting Storm Cursed. One of my goals for the reading year was to finish some of the series that I’ve been reading ever so slowly and Mercy Thompson was at the top of that list. The next series that I will be tackling is Kate Daniels and I can’t wait for that.

Giveaway Alert

We are very fortunate here at Book Binge. We have loads and loads of books to read and we want to share the wealth so each week, we’ll be tacking on a Freebie Friday giveaway to our What Are You Reading posts. This week, we’re giving away…

What Are You Reading? (+ Opal Carew Giveaway)X Marks the Spot by Opal Carew
Publisher: St. Martin's Griffin
Publication Date: April 3, 2018
Genres: Erotica, Contemporary Romance
Pages: 256
Add It: Goodreads
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Opal Carew takes desire to a whole new level in her latest erotic, standalone romance!

Abi has been in love with Del for years, but they never got around to acting on their mutual attraction. And then she met and married his best friend, Liam.

But when Abi and Liam's marriage falls apart, Abi decides to take control of her life and find her happily-ever-after with Del. So when they're all staying in a country inn for her brother's wedding, Abi decides to slip into Del's bed and seduce him...except she accidentally ends up in Liam's instead.

Liam never stopped loving Abi, and he plans to use every blazing hot trick in his book to keep her in his bed...even if it means sharing her with Del.

X Marks the Spot is emotional, sexy, and is Opal Carew at her best!

What Are You Reading: X Marks the Spot by Opal Carew

What are you reading this week? Any new favorites or books that drove you crazy? Share!


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Review: Burn by Maya Banks

Posted March 13, 2019 by Casee in Reviews | 0 Comments

Review: Burn by Maya BanksReviewer: Casee
Burn (Breathless, #3) by Maya Banks
Series: Breathless #1
Also in this series: Rush (Breathless, #1), Fever (Breathless, #2), Burn (Breathless, #3), Rush (Breathless, #1), Fever (Breathless, #2)
Publisher: Berkley
Publication Date: August 6, 2013
Format: eBook
Source: Purchased
Point-of-View: Alternating Third
Genres: Contemporary Romance, Erotica
Pages: 353
Add It: Goodreads
Reading Challenges: Casee's 2019 GoodReads Challenge
Amazon | Barnes & Noble | The Ripped Bodice | Google Play Books
three-half-stars
Series Rating: three-stars

Ash, Jace, and Gabe: three of the wealthiest, most powerful men in the country. They’re accustomed to getting anything they want. Anything at all. For Ash, it’s the woman who changes everything he’s ever known about dominance and desire...

When it comes to sex, Ash McIntyre has always explored his wilder side — extreme and uncompromising. He demands control. And he prefers women who want it like that. Even the women he’s shared with his best friend, Jace.

But Jace is involved with a woman he has no intention of sharing. And now even Gabe has settled into a relationship with a woman who gives him everything he needs, leaving Ash feeling restless and unfulfilled.

Then Ash meets Josie, who seems immune to his charms and his wealth. Intrigued, he begins a relentless pursuit, determined she won’t be the one who got away. He never imagined the one woman to tell him no would be the only woman who’d ever drive him to the edge of desire.

This is the final and best book in the Breathless trilogy. Not that it took much to be better than Rush and Fever. Ash has always been an intriguing character. He’s always seemed like the “aw shucks” type of guy. He never seemed to be much more than a pretty face. There was a hint of more in Fever, but that book was such a train wreck that I wasn’t even thinking of Ash.

Ash first notices Josie in the park. He doesn’t know what about it is that draws his eye, but he’s instantly mesmerized by her. When he approaches her, he’s intrigued when she immediately gathers her things to flee. No one flees Ash. If anything women flock to him. Then the piece of paper she was drawing on flies loose and he sees that she was drawing him.

The way they come into each others lives is kind of messed up. I think by the time I read this book I was pretty much numb to the way these men acted. So the fact that Ash had a guy start following Josie for safety purposes didn’t even raise a red flag. When Josie went to a pawn shop to temporarily pawn her moms jewelry so she could pay her rent, Ash didn’t think twice about buying it and then blackmailing her into going out with him.

Seriously, what is wrong with me that I didn’t think there was a problem with that?

During their date, they both admit their undeniable attraction to each other. Josie admits that she broke up with her on again/off again boyfriend because of him. She wasn’t really happy when she said that. Ash makes sure she knows that if she agrees to be his, he will literally take over her life.

As I’m writing this review, I am seeing the big picture of what Maya Banks was trying to do here. In the first book there was sexual assault, in the second book a character was homeless, in this book there was physical assault. This all happened to the women. I don’t know what the point of it was except to make the men feel helpless.

It was my favorite book of the three because Josie was my favorite heroine of the three. I just really enjoyed her. I was going to give this book a 4 out of 5, but as I kept going along in my review I realized that there was no way that I could do that. There were just too many problems.

Rating: 3.5 out of 5.

Breathless

three-half-stars


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